Lydia Knight's History / The First Book of the Noble Women's Lives

forest trees pulling a sheep-skin. One by one her brothers and sisters, olde

the trees, and the squirrels calling to us to come and chase them from limb to limb.

mouth took another line of determination as she spoke, "I

oors of gleaming white, waving grain on one side of the house and a large vegetable garden on the other side constituted the scene of a home in the forest wilds, which w

rk had been brought by her parents two ye

ester Co., Mass., and eight happy yea

sor of a firm will. Her mother was a quiet-spoken woman, but she bad an ardent temperament and a great deal of natural refinement. She had had some scho

is? Well, while my little girl is

arated from the hide. This last piece of labor generally fell to the children. And in Jesse Goldthwait's family none of the children would keep to the work but Lydia.

up her design. You know Lydia never

nder form, the quiet voice she had inherited from her mother, or the firm will her father had bequeathed t

ars old, a council was held concer

her: you are comfortable for means,

her, "and studiously inclined.

ding-school was chosen, and the

as to the future, mindful of the husking-bees and quiltings, and with

was Calvin Bailey. One who was a stranger in the village, but his smart, dapper ways, and his smooth a

nice," sai

t of a fellow for a frol

ompanions, and was far too young, too much of a child to dre

to Spring and Lydia

o be remembered by the girl who was fast has

, happy talks with her mother, the lovely Sabbath evenings when Father Jesse would solemnly tell of the mysteries o

cquaintance already began with young Bailey, ripened into a mut

old, old story was told again. The story

e her sufferings? The long, lonely hours of waiting, the longing dread to hear the stumbling footsteps, the tortures of fear, the vile abuse, the bitter cursings heaped upon her head, the vain regrets, the puny hopes of a better life born but to be strangled by the next nigh

ned was some distance from her father's, and she was too sensitiv

d this great blessing soothed the a

What could she do? The only course open to her was to return to her father's home; but this was a little trial to her proud spirit. Still it was all that was left for her to do; and taking her little

little boy was born to her, Feb. 1

work was well done but no light laughter went with it. Tears

The mother felt she had indeed drank the last bitter drop from sorrow's cup. She little dreamed of the grand dra